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The long back story (feel free to skip down to the questions):

So shortly after posting that I wasn't interested in PvP in the Otterpops thread, I felt the need to finish off my achievement for Dinner Impossible (placing a feast in each BG). This was a day or two ago. I deserted three battlegrounds, and got sick of waiting for the debuff to wear off. Played through AB, and... it didn't suck too much.

Oh I died like crazy, but gained honor and honorable kills while I was alive. And somehow even with me being the total newbie, we won. I did see a whole lot of people chattering about newbs/noobs/nubs/idiots/omgwhydoyouallsucksomuch, but in the end it didn't matter and was pretty easy to tune out.

Then I played in Tol Barad, with Horde attacking. We won. Hooray! And I didn't see any insults thrown around. That was pretty cool.

Since then I've played through Arathi Basin about ten times. Tol Barad... not positive on the number, but I see 9 wins in the achievement window. Battle for Gilneas two times (one win one loss). Wins, losses, lots of death. A fair number of kills, a fair bit of honor accumulated.

Small disclaimer:
Right now my profile hasn't updated. I have upgraded a few pieces as shown (currently listed: shoulders and gloves). Upgrades not shown: Chest is Ruthless Gladiator's Linked Armor, with Delicate Queen's Garnet and Lucent Lava Coral and Peerless Stats. Off hand is Ruthless Gladiator's Left Ripper with Landslide. Relic is Ruthless Gladiator's Relic of Triumph with Delicate Queen's Garnet.

So! Now that I've put everyone to sleep, I'll ask some newbie PvP questions.

The questions:

1. With 485 honor, and a few more days of the AB call to arms, what should I be focusing on? (Season total so far is 8185 honor earned.) I have three of five ruthless gladiator pieces, but should I upgrade trinkets/weapons/waffles first? Or focus on other armor pieces? Or just hold off until I can get conquest pieces (which would be slow at 50 points per win)?

2. Arathi Basin has been really hit or miss. Last two in a row were abysmally bad, with Alliance taking the win when we had little more than 100-300 resources. We couldn't cap much of anything, couldn't hold anything, and I spent a whole lot of time dead. Like whoa a lot. On the other hand we had some unbalanced in the favor of the Horde. Is this typical? Or is it a side effect of the Call to Arms weekend?

3. Is enhancement shaman considered... OK, bad, great, horrible, fantastic... for PvP? Obviously my offspec is elemental, but my gear there is even worse than what I have for enhancement. And I'm less experienced with the spec in general. I could even consider most other classes for it, but I've played Qazzi the most so it seemed to be the most reasonable for PvP.

4. If you're in a really horrible BG, do you stick it out? Or take the deserter debuff? (I'm sure this one is just opinion, but it'd be nice to know etiquette)

5. What's your favorite BG? I'm enjoying AB and Tol Barad. Battle for Gilneas wasn't as interesting, oddly enough. Pretty much same mechanism for winning, but smaller map than AB. Haven't even tried the others yet. I really like how civil people have been for Tol Barad, which doesn't surprise me given what else I've see on the server.

6. Bonus easy question. How many times has your character died? I'm a very cautious player normally, so Qazzi sitting at just under 140 deaths is a huge number to me. Before doing PvP it was closer to 20.

For anyone who read through all of my rambling, I offer you a cookie. Chocolate chip. Or some broiled dragon feast, if you prefer.

Elemental is fun. when facing down someone alone your flame shock, lava burst, lightning bolt are the go to's.

If facing down a crowd, or better hiding in a bush watching the crowd face down another crowd, chain lightning does a lot of damage really really fast. Especially if you get a lot of Mastery procs.

Not going to touch on Thunderstorm, it's a good way to peel and clear an area but it also spawns a legion of elemental shamans who pop their Thunderstorm and then stand there with blank looks on their faces wondering what they do next.

As enhancement a shaman turns into an unstoppable force of death and destruction*.

*For 45 seconds and then the wolves disappear and they get farmed, unless the wolves get CC'd and the shaman gets farmed immediately.

But if you're looking for high end PvP as a shaman your best bet will be Restoration, they are amazing healers.

Giant Squids,

1. With 485 honor, and a few more days of the AB call to arms, what should I be focusing on? (Season total so far is 8185 honor earned.) I have three of five ruthless gladiator pieces, but should I upgrade trinkets/weapons/waffles first? Or focus on other armor pieces? Or just hold off until I can get conquest pieces (which would be slow at 50 points per win)?

PVP TRINKET FIRST. After that I usually just start at the top or bottom of one of the rows on the character pane and go through it all. Don't waste conquest points on pvp gems, gearing out your Head/Chest/Legs with 403 gear is top priority, so don't worry about filling those slots with 390 unless you have the honor to burn.

Honor weapons suck. If you can run LFR for Deathwing's axes, or better yet raid for the normal mode axes.

2. Arathi Basin has been really hit or miss. Last two in a row were abysmally bad, with Alliance taking the win when we had little more than 100-300 resources. We couldn't cap much of anything, couldn't hold anything, and I spent a whole lot of time dead. Like whoa a lot. On the other hand we had some unbalanced in the favor of the Horde. Is this typical? Or is it a side effect of the Call to Arms weekend?

Don't do AB, it is by far the worst battleground post R14 grind. It is a side-affect of CTA weekend, you'll get teams that are farming it for the reputation grind which makes it so hit-or-miss.

3. Is enhancement shaman considered... OK, bad, great, horrible, fantastic... for PvP? Obviously my offspec is elemental, but my gear there is even worse than what I have for enhancement. And I'm less experienced with the spec in general. I could even consider most other classes for it, but I've played Qazzi the most so it seemed to be the most reasonable for PvP.

Enhancement is kind of like Ret, very few people play it but it can be absolutely devastating if you choose your targets right. Farlez tells me that it's much better in MoP so sticking with it should prove worthwhile.

4. If you're in a really horrible BG, do you stick it out? Or take the deserter debuff? (I'm sure this one is just opinion, but it'd be nice to know etiquette)

Do what you want. I stick it out because leaving will only force someone else to take my place in a horrible situation, but you are under absolutely no obligation to stick out an unfun situation in a game.

5. What's your favorite BG? I'm enjoying AB and Tol Barad. Battle for Gilneas wasn't as interesting, oddly enough. Pretty much same mechanism for winning, but smaller map than AB. Haven't even tried the others yet. I really like how civil people have been for Tol Barad, which doesn't surprise me given what else I've see on the server.

Win Peaks. It's the easiest BG to carry people in.

6. Bonus easy question. How many times has your character died? I'm a very cautious player normally, so Qazzi sitting at just under 140 deaths is a huge number to me. Before doing PvP it was closer to 20.

Get used to dying, but dying isn't a big deal at all: discern your objectives and focus your attention on achieving them. Fear of death only inhibits your abilities.

World Peace and Puppies,
--Eph

Wow lots of interest info, but too much to quote for replies. Trying to reply mostly in order, though.

Zero experience healing as a shaman. How hard is it to learn?

I have max level crafters for everything, so gems and enchants and crafted armor pieces are all easy-peasy for me. But of course that's still just Vicious stuff for armor, but better than PvE armor. Definitely wouldn't spend honor/conquest on gems.

Honor weapons may suck, but they're a fair improvement over what I have. I've never done a raid. Never had the interest. So I think I'd be even worse at raiding than PvP -- and the gear I have equipped is all that I have. I'm sure it would be tons of fun to walk into a raid with PvP gear.

What makes AB the worst battleground? I mean, is it due to players, or the setup, or... monkeys?

I know basic strategies for AB and Tol Barad. As a newbie DPS, what kind of thing would I need to do for a capture the flag style game?

PvP trinket, aye. Next on the list. ...which one? None grant agility, so I could grab the one that's +429 resilience or +429 critical strike rating. Given the rest of my gear, I'm thinking I should lean towards the resilience. And replace my Darkmoon card trinket. Yes/no? (Edit to add: I'm looking at the honor vendor for trinkets. Is there anywhere else I could be looking?)

I also think the consensus is that AB is bleh. Probably why it's CtA. But given that it is CtA weekend, should I keep going with it to gear up? Just a bit concerned that with smaller groups (like the ones in Gilneas) my inexperience will be more of a hindrance.

You people are awesome, thanks for the info.

Giant Squids,

05/18/2012 09:02 PMPosted by Qazzi

Zero experience healing as a shaman. How hard is it to learn?

It's easy to learn to resto shaman. There are jillions of PvP videos from vanilla->cata showing exceptional skill and ingenuity. I recommend:

http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=54211#mirrors

Unfortunately the video takes a premium account to view/download : (

I'm sure it would be tons of fun to walk into a raid with PvP gear.

It's pretty easy but you are right: it is not fun. You won't get yelled at or anything tho, and the weapons are far better than the PvP weapons. The DPS trinkets from PvE are also miles ahead of the PvP DPS trinkets available.

05/18/2012 09:02 PMPosted by Qazzi

What makes AB the worst battleground? I mean, is it due to players, or the setup, or... monkeys?

Arathi Basin was fine if you were in some queue on your server for R14 dorking around for hours on end in vent. It is a great battleground for people with good crowd control and subtlty.

Unfortunately, once the R14 grind was taken out it no longer worked in the honor-per-hour format of TBC-WOTLK-Cata; zerging nodes slows down the game. Let me expound:

Since the game ending is determined by resources and not time any significant objective of AB slows down the game (instead of speeding it up.) If two teams continually base-trade the game can theoretically go on forever provided the nodes are perpetually changing hands.

Additionally the rate-of-return for resources is non-liniar, which is why 5 caps only take two minutes while most AB games take ~30.


Nodes Resources Interval Resources
per interval length/sec (per second)
1 10 12 0.8
2 10 9 1.1
3 10 6 1.7
4 10 3 3.3
5 30 1 30.0

All of this combines to make Arathi Basin that quaint combination of soul-leeching and infuriating.

As for CTF games your job as a DPS is to put out massive amounts of damage while Crowd Controlling enemy healers. If you need help coordinating your CC you might want to install addons like Clean Plates: Tidy Plates and PlateBuffs so that you can see exactly which of your enemies is afflicted with what. Here's a video in action, notice how at the 1 minute mark how two rogues CS and KSed the same druid at the same time, complete fail.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jQQ2qRB84M

But that's just my suggestion, do what works best for you.

05/18/2012 09:02 PMPosted by Qazzi

PvP trinket, aye. Next on the list. ...which one?

Cataclysmic Gladiator's Medallion of Tenacity or it's honor equivalent. Right next to the honor vendor is a Conquest Vendor, do arenas for conquest points.

05/18/2012 09:02 PMPosted by Qazzi

I also think the consensus is that AB is bleh. Probably why it's CtA. But given that it is CtA weekend, should I keep going with it to gear up?

Don't worry about inexperience. Get 4 friends and do random battlegrounds if you think AB is boring.

World Peace and Puppies,
--Eph

TB is horrible.

Main thing with AB is to keep a Magma totem on the ground near the flag at all times.

CTF games are a crapshoot solo, if you are solo then it comes down to which batch of Puggers are worse.

CTF with friends is much preferable, get a five man, get in Skype, and own face.

Healing as a resto shaman is fun.

Weapons are a huge upgrade, no if's and's or but's about it. As soon as you get your season total, get your weapon.

Get the 2200 honor pieces first, and save up the CQ cap for the gloves, and the nthe shoulders.

Honor Legs --> Honor Chest --> Cata Gloves --> Cata Shoulders

The glove bonus adds an extra five yards to Wind Shear and shocks, may not seem all that great, but it can be invaluable. Most glove bonuses are afterall.

I'd save trinkets for last. And don't bother much with the Cata pvp trinket, all it gives is slightly more resilience, you can save room on your CQ cap by just using the Honor one, once you get fully Cata geared you can always worry about the Cata trinket then if you want.

I can't say why I like Tol Barad, but I do. Either attacking or defending.

But the guards on the bridge... OW. We won. Defended it all. But the silly guards were still there and nearly killed me. Also, ow.

Also -- Ephie, I watched the video about the two rogues CS-ing and KS-ing the guard. I think I saw a Cheap Shot there, no idea what KS is. Kraft Singles? Aside from an icon or two I really had a hard time telling what was going on in the video. I strongly suspect that there is no rogue ability to throw pseudo-cheese slices at a guard, but I haven't played my rogue much so maybe there is. Maybe Killing Spree. Hmm.

After the latest Tol Barad victory, Qazzi's sitting at about 1200 honor. Almost all of that came from TB, but I did run a few ABs in there -- more abysmal failures, ooog. I think I'm done with PvP for the evening, but tomorrow I'm still strongly considering the trinket. The needed 400 or so honor shouldn't be hard to get, and there were a whole lot of instances in AB where I had no control over my character. It was frustrating.

Oh, and the reason I say the AB instances were abysmal. We were all totally unorganized. Scattered all over the map. In the last one, Alliance moved to the Blacksmith but didn't capture it. Just sat on it. We capped all the others. Then Alliance rolled over the two of us at the farm, and then took almost all the other bases one at a time. It was really depressing. Saw a huge group of people get the Resilient Victory. Even though chat mentioned what they were probably doing, we couldn't defend. Glargh.

Giant Squids,

05/18/2012 11:29 PMPosted by Qazzi

I think I saw a Cheap Shot there, no idea what KS is.

Kidney Shot. They won't get cheese abilities until 6.0. It happens at exactly 1 minute 1 second,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jQQ2qRB84M#t=1m1s

In short one or two rogues there stunned a Ralknimb whom was already stunned. Had they waited and garroted after the stun went off it would have been more effective. Of course efficiency isn't really needed when you have 39 other people around, but you get the idea.

05/18/2012 11:29 PMPosted by Qazzi

Oh, and the reason I say the AB instances were abysmal. We were all totally unorganized. Scattered all over the map. In the last one, Alliance moved to the Blacksmith but didn't capture it.

If you run AB with like 2 priests, a rogue, a frost death knight, and yourself you can rotate your CC abilities to always be able to capture points. Hex shares its diminishing return with Poly, but between Hex/Fear/Sap/AOE DK Freeze/Mind Control/Stun/Silence a group of five can easily just keep capping to victory in AB. Unfortunately that relies on the other 10 people being generally competent.

World Peace and Puppies,
--Eph

You know, I just realized that I never use Hex. I forgot shamans even had Hex.

Aww yeah, I'm a star shaman. Best one on the server.

You know, I just realized that I never use Hex. I forgot shamans even had Hex.

Aww yeah, I'm a star shaman. Best one on the server.

Well at least you remembered grounding totem, tremor totem, earthbind totem, spirit walker's grace, faking your heals, frostbrand switching for kiting with UE and frost shock, etc etc right? >>

Also elemental is awesome and it makes you feel awesome. That is all.

Maelstroms mean I never have to fake heals.

Earthbind not so much, but I have used it. Tremor Totem is my friend. There's very little use for Spiritwalker's Grace for me, though I suppose I could combine that with healing if I didn't have any maelstroms up (which would just be silly).

Frost shock I use... not totally sure what you're talking about with frostbrand switching. At a guess, it'd be enhancing weapon with (surprise!) Frostbrand Weapon, unleashing elements, then re-enhancing with the actual preferred enhance. That sounds like a lot of work (i.e., GCDs) for a 5 second slow, especially considering that Frost Shock is already an 8 second slow. Or maybe I'm not quite understanding.

Elemental PoV :<

Edit: Also in half jest.

Sleepy replies for you!

1. what should I be focusing on? Don't forget that baradin hold drops pvp gear of the cata variety. If you can get into a few runs, please do. It drops things like neck, cloak, hands, umm.. oh crap i've completely forgot what the other pieces were. Legs! It drops legs for sure. That'll be one less piece to get so back up and make sure that you run that, buy those pieces to replace last. Get a trinket for certain, they have the biggest resilience boosts for you. I think Ephie already said it but don't run ruthless weapons, get yourself some lfr ones of a variety of types.

2. Arathi Basin: On the other hand we had some unbalanced in the favor of the Horde. Is this typical? Or is it a side effect of the Call to Arms weekend?
I *love* arathi basin. Love love love love love love love. Ask my guild, they get stuck being dragged into it every time it's cta with me. Which brings up an answer to your question. The people who like that base and are *geared* tend to grab all their friends and do premades the entire weekend. So you are more likely to run into more people who work as a team, have the gear and know what they're doing in ab this weekend. Generally I would say avoid it unless you're running with some geared friends.

3. Is enhancement shaman considered... OK, bad, great, horrible, fantastic... for PvP?
In *general* if I see an enhancement shaman in arenas/bgs I kind of go 'lol okay not gonna die' and they tend not to be able to do much against us before my teammates kill them. I say in general, but that's true about every class to some extent. The other night we went against an enhancement shaman who just *ripped apart* my teammate.. without her wolves out... while her partner kept me chain cc'd (with the occassional cc thrown from her). Don't underestimate it, when played right it is pretty devastating. BUT it's one of those classes, like warriors, that really requires a partner to be able to shine.

4. If you're in a really horrible BG, do you stick it out? Or take the deserter debuff? Personally? I stick it out. I'm not interested in sitting around for a while waiting for deserter to wear off, you might as well finish off the bg and get the little bit of honor for it. OR I go and derp and figure out some really inane acheivement that you wouldn't normally get in the bg. Like the double rainbow one in bfg. If we're getting three capped I race to see if I can get that before we do, etc.

5. What's your favorite BG? Tol Barad, at least as far as world bgs go. Not because of the objective of the game, that's fairly mindless, doesn't have much mechanics behind it. But I *love* when we get epic battles of one side vs the other for ten/fifteen/twenty minutes at a time. I'll be honest, I tend to ignore the 'this is where you go next' mechanics and run to the base that' s going get/is getting hit the hardest just for the fun. After that I love Win peaks and wsg because flag carrying matches are very well suited for my play style, followed by bfg and ab. I'm not a big fan of the HUGE bgs, they tend to lag out my computer and I hate the sort of helpless feeling I get from other people playing. Like they feel there are so many people they can't make a difference so they just flounder. I don't mind strands but I'm not a huge vehicle fight type person.

6. Bonus easy question. How many times has your character died? Some ridiculously huge number I'm sure. I haven't looked at it, but I'll bet it's high and silly. Ask Selynth sometimes, she says pvp with me is repeated suicide missions.

I love sleepy replies.

In general, is there a class/spec which instantly screams out "oh. I'ma die now." ? Right now just about anything one on one with Qazzi means death. There was a death knight that Qazzi killed alone in Tol Barad (and of course there were two rogues that popped up seconds later and sent Qazzi to the great bank vault in the sky). But I think that was an exception.

I have all but paladin and hunter at 85, though Qazzi is the best geared for PvP. I'm not a good rogue, but I think that class would work well in general.

Random blathering...

Didn't get to play much PvP today. One win in AB with a solid group -- awesome communications and it seemed that the majority were paying attention to flags. One loss in Tol Barad, blamed mainly on people playing with siege engines instead of defending flags (wasn't watching map so not sure about how accurate that was). One win in Tol Barad with me as Fearful Leader.

And I'm starting to think that Tol Barad is my favorite place to play. Even the quick loss earlier today wasn't met with too much hostility. Wyrmrest Accord are, in general, polite. One of the main reasons I love the server. AB and other battlegrounds with other servers... wow the ranting and raving is insane.

...yeah, sorry. This thread isn't a blog. I blame the beer.

05/19/2012 10:14 PMPosted by Qazzi

And I'm starting to think that Tol Barad is my favorite place to play. Even the quick loss earlier today wasn't met with too much hostility. Wyrmrest Accord are, in general, polite. One of the main reasons I love the server. AB and other battlegrounds with other servers... wow the ranting and raving is insane.

I like Tol Barad too. There's just something nice about seeing the same people again and again. And yeah I like BG chat too. One time, in an IoC, our gate when down and everyone just started sayin "We Lose" even when the victory screen came up....

Giant Squids,

05/19/2012 10:14 PMPosted by Qazzi

In general, is there a class/spec which instantly screams out "oh. I'ma die now." ?

Death Knights and mages are consistently strong without backup in wPvP, rogues in BGs are awesome and creative, and if you like 3s warlocks are the place to be. Right now the state of the game is unhealable DPS so anything that can flat-out deny your opponent is great.

World Peace and Puppies,
--Eph

Quoting myself: "Wyrmrest Accord are, in general, polite." Pretend like there's a whole other word in there. Maybe "folks" in between Accord and are. Possibly people. Perhaps llamas. Everyone likes polite llamas.

And I'm sorry, it may just be the time of day... but state of the game is unhealable DPS? I'm not sure what that means.

...I've been staring at the monitor for a few minutes now. So I think it is the time of day. Or something.

Oh, and armory updated with latest changes. In my infinite wisdom this evening, I looked at how much honor I had. I had 2300 honor or so. Easily enough to afford the honor trinket (1650 honor). And enough to afford the legs (2200 honor, the last of the four pieces I need for the nifty agility/maelstrom bonus). So I'll get both! Yes!

It took me a few minutes to figure out why this wasn't working. But I did upgrade legs at least. I'm smrt.